Odey Asset Management has become the minority shareholder in a former manager’s investment boutique, Latitude Investment Management.

Freddie Lait (pictured), who previously managed the Odey Atlas fund, founded the new firm which will open its doors on 1 November.

As part of the move he will be taking the £11.9 million Odey Atlas fund with him and launching it as the Latitude Horizon fund, a global long-only diversified growth strategy targeting absolute returns with lower volatility.

‘It seemed to me multi-asset long-only, lower fees, transparent, and simplistic portfolios are actually what most people – from an individual with a £100,000 to very large institutions – want,’ Lait told Wealth Manager.

The fund will charge an annual management fee of 1% and no performance fee.

Prior to the six years he spent at Odey, Lait worked at NM Rothschild and Goldman Sachs.

He is joined by chief operating officer Mark Carter from Vinci Zafferano and Emma Barrat from Oppenheimer, who will be responsible for sales and marketing.

Orlando Montagu, a partner at Odey, added: ‘We absolutely wish him well. We are minority shareholders. We did not want to build the business in-house but we absolutely want to support him in building it externally. It is something we often do with people who have had a good career here and want to do their own thing.’